In looking at Jacob Collins' figure painting, there's no doubt that He plans his compositions carefully, giving much thought to the patterns of light and shade, and the position of "forms" of the figure. The immaculate cloth is heavenly, and the subtle values that describe the form are almost infallible. However, there seems to be no doubt that the rendition of the figure is more important to him than the expression of model’s humanity. Collins doesn't quite reach the "exquisite plane " of Bougureau's angelic softness in the flesh, and doesn't depart too much from what we expect in a good photograph. The narrative (theme) or subject of figure expression is missing in Collins' work, which leaves us simply with a fantastic "renditional skill, which becomes the subject of his work.Fiore Custode